The Bible in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz) - Day 114: David Saves Keilah (2025)

Episode Date: April 24, 2025

Fr. Mike explores the actions of David before saving the city of Keilah, and how he sets an example for us while discerning God's will. He also points out how God is working constantly in our lives, even if we don't see half of what he's doing. Today's readings are 1 Samuel 23 and Psalm 54. For the complete reading plan, visit ascensionpress.com/bibleinayear. Please note: The Bible contains adult themes that may not be suitable for children - parental discretion is advised.

Hi, my name is Father Mike Schmitz and you're listening to the Bible in a Year podcast where we encounter God's voice and live life through the lens of scripture. The Bible in a Year podcast is brought to you by Ascension. Using the Reit Adventure Bible timeline, we'll read all the way from Genesis to Revelation, discovering how the story of salvation unfolds and how we fit into that story today. It is day 114. We are just reading one chapter from 1st Samuel. We're reading 1st Samuel chapter 23. We're also praying Psalm 54. As always, the Bible translation

that I am using is the Revised Sander Version, 2nd Catholic edition. I'm using the Great Adventure Bible from Ascension. If you want to download your own Bible in a Year reading plan, you can visit ascensionpress.com slash Bible in a Year. And if you have not yet subscribed to this podcast, you can just click subscribe and it'll be done and you'll be subscribed and life will be good As I said today is day 114. We're reading first Samuel chapter 23. We're praying psalm 54 First Samuel chapter 23 David saves the city of Kielah Now they told David behold the Philistines are fighting against Kila, and are robbing the threshing floors.

Therefore, David inquired of the Lord, Shall I go and attack these Philistines? And the Lord said to David, Go, and attack the Philistines, and save Kila. But David's men said to him, Behold, we are afraid here in Judah, how much more if we go to Kila against the armies of the Philistines? Then David inquired of the Lord again, and the Lord answered him, Arise, go down to Keilah, for I will give the Philistines into your hand. And David and his men went to Keilah, and fought with the Philistines, and brought away their cattle, and made a great slaughter among them.

So David delivered the inhabitants of Keilah. When Abiyathar the son of Ahimelech fled to David to Kila, he came down with an ephod in his hand. Now it was told Saul that David had come to Kila, and Saul said, God has given him into my hand, for he has shut himself in by entering a town that has gates and bars. And Saul summoned all the people to war to go down to Kila to besiege David and his men. David knew that Saul was plotting evil against him, and he said to Abethar the priest, Bring the Ifad here. Then said David, O Lord, the God of Israel, your servant has surely heard that Saul seeks

to come to Keilah to destroy the city on my account. Will the men of Keilah surrender me into his hand? Will Saul come down as your servant has heard? O Lord, the God of Israel, I me into his hand? Will Saul come down as your servant has heard? O Lord, the God of Israel, I beg you, tell your servant." And the Lord said, he will come down. Then said David, will the men of Keilah surrender me and my men into the hand of Saul?

And the Lord said, they will surrender you. Then David and his men, who were about 600, arose and departed from Keilah, and they went wherever they could go. When Saul was told that David had escaped from Keilah, he gave up the expedition, and David remained in the strongholds in the wilderness, in the hill country of the wilderness of Ziph. And Saul sought him every day, but God did not give him into his hand. David eludes Saul in the wilderness. And David was afraid, because Saul had come out to seek his life.

David was in the wilderness of Ziph at Horash. And Jonathan, Saul's son, rose and went to David at Horash, and strengthened his hand in God. And he said to him, Fear not, for the hand of Saul my father shall not find you. You shall be king over Israel, and I shall be next to you. Saul my father also knows this. And the two of them made a covenant before the Lord. David remained at Horus, and Jonathan went home. Then the Ziphites went up to Saul at Gibeah saying,

Does not David hide among us in the strongholds at Horus, on the hill of Hakila, which is south of Jezumon? Now come down, O King, according to all your heart's desire to come down, and our part shall be to surrender him into the king's hand." And Saul said, May you be blessed by the Lord, for you have compassion on me. Go, make yet more sure. Know and see the place where his haunt is, and who has seen him there, for it is told me that he is very cunning. See therefore, and take note of all the lurking places where he hides, and come back to me with sure information. Then I will go with you, and if he is in the land,

I will search him out among all the thousands of Judah." And they arose, and went to Ziph ahead of Saul. Now David and his men were in the wilderness of Maon, in the Ereba to the south of Jeshamun. And Saul and his men went to seek him, and David was told, therefore he went down to the rock which is in the wilderness of Maon. And when Saul heard that, he pursued after David in the wilderness of Maon. Saul went on one side of the mountain, and David and his men on the other side of the

mountain. And David was making haste to get away from Saul, as Saul and his men were closing in upon David and his men to capture them, when a messenger came to Saul, saying, Make haste and come, for the Philistines have made a raid upon the land. So Saul returned from pursuing after David and went against the Philistines. Therefore, that place was called the Rock of Escape, and David went up from there and dwelt in the strongholds of Ein Gedi. Psalm 54 Prayer for Vindication

To the Choir Master with stringed instruments, a mascot of David, when the Ziphites went and told Saul, David is in hiding among us. Save me, O God, by your name, and vindicate me by Your might. Hear my prayer, O God, give ear to the words of my mouth. For insolent men have risen against me, ruthless men seek my life. They do not set God before them. Behold, God is my helper, the Lord is the upholder of my life. He will repay my enemies with evil, and Your faithfulness put an end end to them With a free will offering I will sacrifice to you. I will give thanks to your name. Oh Lord for it is good

For you have delivered me from every trouble and my eye has looked in triumph on my enemies Father in heaven we give you praise and glory. We thank you. We thank you for the fact that you are just and you're good and you continually speak to us. Lord God, and sometimes in our prayer you're quiet, sometimes in our prayer we're asking for a specific answer. You are silent and you don't speak in the way that we would prefer. But Lord God, you continue to speak. You continue to speak to us through your word You continue to speak to us every single day that we press play and and just allow your word To reach our ears and allow your word to touch and transform our hearts And so this day just like David we ask for your guidance we ask for

Your will to be made known Not only in sacred scripture Lord God and not only through the church But also in our prayer we ask that you please and and also in the people around us We ask that you just in everything your will is done and everything you are glorified And we give you praise and glory right now Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit as it was in the beginning is now and ever shall Be world without end. Amen Amen in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit

Amen So here we are just one chapter obviously in first Samuel chapter 23 and and I just think there's something so powerful about this So the beginning of the story right beginning of this chapter I mean we have David say saving the city of Kila and so they told David Philistines are attacking Kila and it's really interesting because David has one of three bases well maybe has a lot of potential options but he there are three that come to the service one is David could say okay fine I'm not the king Saul's the king let Saul defend the people of Kila against the Philistines he could have said not my business secondly he could have said okay let's do. Secondly, he could have said, okay, let's just, let's do it. Let's, they did my business. I will fight. Or he could do what he did do.

And he said, I will inquire of the Lord about this. And it's really remarkable because we have this happen again and again, where he says, where specifically he will say that here's this group of people, or here is the leader of the people who did not consult the Lord. It just, you know, this new information came to this person and I didn't ask the Lord What he what his will was and yet here's David could have said not my business could have said it is my business Let's go But what he did say was I actually need to ask of the Lord first then then what happens is it then? This is I think pretty remarkable. There are people that David trusts who say don't let's not do this

So then it says David appealed to the Lord again, and he went back to God So what this shows is that not only does David inquire of the Lord Not only does David ask God for guidance He's also actually taking into account the wisdom of the people around him And this is one of the things that we do when we discern is that yes We absolutely we go to the scripture absolutely we listen to what has the church taught on this in the past we look in and say okay God have you ever said anything about this or are you

speaking now to tell me no or to tell me yes but we also weigh in weigh up I guess we taking into account the the wise voices around us. And so that's what David does. He takes into account and then goes back to the Lord and the Lord's voice continues to say, "'Yep, even though your people who are your counselors around you say no, I continue to say yes.'" And so there's something really powerful about this where it just gives us a great example,

not only for ourselves, but also gives us insight into the heart of David, that David is gonna be the kind of person who does appeal to the Lord, who doesn't just go off on his own. Well, that may come later on. But right now, what David is showing is that he is a man after God's own heart,

and he appeals to the Lord for direction more than anything. The other thing I just wanna highlight is the Ziphyites, right, they betray David David because they say that, they tell Saul that he's there. But there's the last section of chapter 23, there's this little story and it basically, the story describes how on one side of the hill is Saul and his army and the other side of the hill

is David and his band of ruffians essentially, his band of his 600 men. And they're simply separated by a ridge. They're simply separated one on the other side if if Saul knew the king David future King David was on the other side of this ridge what he could have done is he could have driven over the ridge and yet what happened is is You know God sends word through the messengers of King Saul that the Philistines were attacking and so he had to go back and of King Saul that the Philistines were attacking and so he had to go back and do what kings have to do.

And I think about this in particularly, particularly as it relates to all of the ways that God is acting when we don't realize it. All the ways that God is still active when we have no idea. Because you would imagine David has no idea on the other side of this ridge is King Saul and David has no idea that this was a close call that he has no idea this could have been the end of his life Until after and then he realizes. Oh this place is the rock of escape And how many times you get yes difficult things happen to us and horrible things happen to the people we love

And yet and we count those up right because those those matter the fact that we're often hurt the fact that people who we love and yet, and we count those up, right? Because those matter, the fact that we're often hurt, the fact that people who we love are often hurt. But we don't even know how to begin counting the number of escapes the Lord has given to us, the number of times the Lord has delivered us, the number of times we didn't even realize how close we were to disaster and God stepped in in a way that we just might see as a coincidence

so we might just see as we might not even notice it we might even see it until heaven where we can look back over our lives and we'll be able to see not only all of the times when there was difficult moments where God was present but he allowed us to enter the difficult moments but also all of those moments where it could have been catastrophe. It could have been disaster It could have been the end of us But God in his mysterious will in his mysterious way He had stepped in and so one of the things the hand of God is

Present to all of us even when we don't realize it The hand of God is present to us right now in the sense that this is the shortest I think day we've had so far day 114 Maybe get the Lord wants to just give you a little break and say, you know what? Only half as long today. We'll do some longer ones later on. But today is day 114 and I just wanna let you know how proud I am of you and so grateful I am for you

to continue journeying with all of us in this Bible in a year. Please keep praying for each other. I am praying for you. Please, please, please pray for me. My name is Father Mike and I cannot wait to see you tomorrow. God bless.